Optical communications, such as fiber optic communications utilize a light source at one end that transmits one or more data streams by modulating the data stream into light signals. These light signals pass through a medium such as air or a glass fiber with internally reflective surfaces (a fiber optic fiber) to a receiver which employs a photon detection module to detect the light signals. The detected light is then demodulated back into one or more data streams.
In order to effectively utilize the available light bandwidth, a number of distinct channels may be created by assigning a different light wavelength to each channel. Different data streams may be placed on each channel and transmitted simultaneously over a same medium to a same receiver. This practice is commonly referred to as Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM). Some WDM systems allow up to 80 such channels per fiber and per channel bandwidth may be 40 Gbit/second to produce almost 3.1 terabits/second of transmission on a single fiber (not including losses due to overhead).
As a result of this large bandwidth, fiber optic systems are becoming increasingly popular with communication network providers, cloud service providers, and other entities that need to transfer large amounts of data very quickly. In addition to carrying a large amount of data, fiber optics offer other advantages such as: less attenuation than electrical cables—which provides the benefit of utilizing less network infrastructure for longer runs of communication cables; lack of electromagnetic interference; and various other benefits.